Encore2 - Running Out of Space with DVD-5's

[Bill Hunt]

I posted this to the Adobe Encore forum, but wanted to run it past the folk here, as there is much experience beyond Encore.

I have a Project that is to be a 3-DVD set. These must be DVD-5's, as the clients’ machines will not play DVD-9. I am running into two little problems.

First, the Project:

All Assets are DV-AVI from PP2. These are basically slideshows with a few MOV files added in, and simple Cross-dissolves, plus pan & zoom on each still image. Unfortunately, the Assets have grown to the max. I anticipate very slight growth before final (back in the NLE part of things).

DVD-01 consists of five Timelines: 1 very short Play First going to Main Menu and four much longer Timelines. Main Menu, Scene Selection Menu and Button Transitions to these Timelines, plus a Play All Playlist from Main Menu. There is Audio on both Menus.

DVD-02 consists of thirteen Timelines: 1 very short Play First going to Main Menu and twelve Timelines of varying length. Main Menu, Scene Selection Menus of four Timelines each, and Button Transitions to these Timelines, plus a Play All Playlist from Main Menu. There is Audio on all Menus.

DVD-03 consists of six Timelines: 1 very short Play First going to Main Menu, four much longer Timelines and one Credits Timeline. Main Menu, Scene Selection Menu and Button Transitions to these Timelines, plus a Play All Playlist from Main Menu. There is Audio on both Menus.

Now, for my two problems.

First problem: Even using Encore2's automatic Transcoding, these three DVD’s are just barely over the limit for a DVD-5. Not much, but I’m getting errors. Question: I’ve got DVDShrink, but have never been too pleased with how it handles full DVD’s (Menus and all). It seems to be more useful for *other* things. Does anybody know of a similar program that does a good job of very slightly compressing from an ISO, or DVD folder? Obviously, I’m most interested in total functionality of the navigation. None of my Assets has much motion, except for slow pans & zooms, plus the Transitions. In lieu of that, my next request would be for some guidance on setting the Transcodes manually. The one problem that I have with using my limited bit-budgeting experience (via various bit-budgeting calculators) is trying to figure the overhead of these Menus and their Button Transitions. Does anyone have a good rec. for DV-AVI’s of just pan & zoom stills with Cross-dissolve Transitions?*

Second problem: The Play First is a tiny 04 sec. lead-in with SFX transitioning to the Main Menu. I’ve never done any lead-in this short, so maybe that is the problem. In the burned DVD (three set-top players), I get that black couple of frames, that we see in Preview, but disappear on the burned DVD. In my case, it’s still there, and *seems* longer actually, than it appears in preview. If people feel that it’s too short, I can add a Title, prior to the fade-in of the still of the Main Menu. Obviously, with problem #1, I don’t want to increase the size of any of these more than I absolutely have to.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Hunt

* I am also exploring doing a 4 DVD set, but the Timelines constitute major “chapters” in the Project. To separate them to span 4 DVD’s will be tougher, than it might at first appear. Still, if it gets down to it, I can always re-do the Button Transitions, etc. My big problem will be with the scripting of the entire Project. I’d rather keep it to 3, as there is a natural break, but all of my headroom is gone — and I do not even have my Audio added yet. The DVD set that I am finishing up now is just for final editing. As I said, I anticipate that each Asset will probably grow very slightly. Life is never easy.

[Bill Hunt]

Well, problem #2 solved, I think. After posting, I went back to the PP2 Timeline for the little Play First AV. I studied it at a frame-level and saw that my Transition from Black Video was actually two frames longer, than that Clip. I stretched that Clip (still of the Menu) out four frames, and it's doing what I wanted. In my search to cut Durations (problem #1), I was too aggressive on trimming that Clip - well, DUH!

Still looking for thoughts on problem #1.

Hunt

PS As with most problems, I find that they most often boil down to the system, OE and then a glitch with the program, or a bug. In my case, it was definitely OE.